Conventional Wisdom
by alwaysnight
Summary: In which Mycroft bequeaths a gift unto Sherlock, and John finds it hard to keep his cool. Chapter three: Ambulances.  John/Sherlock. Eventual slash.
1. Chapter 1

Acknowledgements: The characters herein are those of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but used in the spirit of Gatiss and Moffat's adaptation. As such, they are not mine - if they were, they'd be far less coherent.

* * *

What John defines as a 'quiet day' has changed somewhat, thanks to Sherlock. Where once a morning could be comfortably filled with a newspaper and a brisk walk to collect some milk, it would now seem entirely lacking in substance; anything less than a fully-fledged murder investigation seems a paucity of activity these days, and this fact worries John considerably. This is not to say that he dislikes inactivity - being bored is a condition he grew to respect greatly during the war, it representing a state in which one is assured that he is not in danger of being killed with any urgency, and one should never sneer at the chance to sit down and watch the world go by uninterrupted. John worries not because _he_ is bored, but rather because Sherlock is. A bored Sherlock is dangerous.

You can't come up against an innovative criminal genius every day of the week and not expect to eventually run out of sadists to play with. Winter was driving away even the most hardened of miscreants, and this wet, interminable tuesday represented the nadir of a particularly dry spell. Sherlock was dealing with the enforced lassitude by sorting through a box delivered by one of Mycroft's cronies the night before. It was marked, somewhat intriguingly - to John's mind at least, he was sure Sherlock's comprehension had been so fast as to remove any kind of suspense from the matter – 'Representative Headgear'. No explanation had been given for its arrival. Sherlock wouldn't have it any other way.

"Fetch me a knife, John. A long one. I've a curious feeling that I won't care about damaging the contents of this."

John did as he was told, content with the excuse to move, and handed Sherlock the most unwieldy looking knife from their cutlery drawer. He thought it looked remarkably like the murder weapon from a recent case, and that Sherlock gripped the thing so gingerly would suggest that he was correct.

John shuddered.

"I need to get out of here, it's too warm and everything in this bloody flat is worrying. Do you need anything from the shop? The corner shop? No chemicals, Sherlock, I know what you're thinking."

"John, my dear, you know nothing of the sort. Now leave, if you must, but do it quietly. This will require my full attention."

"Right. Yes. The nicotine patches are in the bread bin, if your full attention isn't quite enough. I'll be twenty minutes. Don't blow anything up."

Sherlock watched from the corner of his eye as John pulled on a pair of quite unattractive trainers, knotted one of Sherlock's scarves – curious – around his throat, and closed the door quietly behind him.

Representative headgear. Mycroft, you wonderful man.

One of Sherlock's great pleasures as a child had been dressing up. A favourite amongst his many prodigious talents, he excelled at mimicry – not the most noble of the thespian arts, he would agree, but certainly one of the more satisfying. Mycroft had ridiculed him for it, and so had the boys at school, and so in order to carry on with the minimum of interruption Sherlock had devised a party piece to give the act an air of novelty. He would take the hat of a member of whatever group he was performing to, place it on his head, and throw himself into the task of recreating its owner as fully as he could, with no clues given aside from those afforded by their cap. It worked on two levels, really – Sherlock could carry on playing, thus allowing him the continued enjoyment of one of the few unintellectualised hobbies he had, and at the same time increase his reputation for brilliance. And he did so love doing that.

The box, he had guessed the moment he signed for it, contained a few items he recognised from such games. Most of them held no interest – he had understood their characters years ago, and now they were merely musty pieces of ephemera, devoid of any entertainment. These he thrust aside, making a mental note to offer their usage to John, who would surely welcome some more shapeless beige into his wardobe. He did seem to rather like that sort of thing. After a brief appraisal, he tossed hat after hat over his shoulder, cringing slightly as a particularly robust Stetson clipped one of Mrs Hudson's prized statuettes. He was beginning to suspect Mycroft was just fobbing a box of junk off on him, when right at the bottom, between a pale frilled bonnet and a grey beret, he saw it.

It fit perfectly. Sherlock stood, a spring in his step not seen since he last had cause to call Lestrade an idiot, and mounted the coffee table, eager to give the thing the stature it deserved. The glass frame of a dark print provided him with a convenient mirror, and gleefully, he _preened_.

Sherlock was still admiring himself when John returned, blue and white striped bag hanging from the crook of his arm as he struggled with cane and keys. He grumbled to no one in particular about the indignity of it all, not expecting Sherlock to hear or care, and was preparing an admonishing speech for him when he rounded the corner at the top of the staircase and caught sight of his flatmate on the coffee table, atop a mound of old fashioned hats, still largely oblivious of his presence, a motheaten Deerstalker pulled tightly over his ears.

"Sherlock?"

"Yes," he stated, with an air of exasperated confirmation, as if John was so stupid as to consider him disguised by his new accessory. Apparently satisfied with the view of the left side of his head, he swung his jaw and began to arrange the curls around his right ear.

"Sherlock," John began again, entering the living room and dropping his bag by the sofa, so as to free up his hands for any gestures that might occur to him, "what is _that_?"

Giving himself one last look in the mirror, Sherlock span on his heel and dismounted the table with all the grace of a newly-born colt. Which was probably fitting, given the headgear.

"This _magnificent_ piece belonged to my grandfather. Mycroft clearly means me to have it. I must say, it does look better on me than it would on him."

"Ah. Did you lose a bet?"

Sherlock glared, incredulously. "I never lose bets, John. I'd hoped you'd understand that by now."

"It seemed the only explanation." John peered up at the thing, its ribbons tied clumsily to the curve of Sherlock's skull, and tried to imagine a universe in which this was an odd thing to come home to.

"I can think of at least 26 explanations. You aren't trying hard enough. And do you mean to say you don't like it? I find it rather attractive. Authoritative, you might say."

"26 is an exaggeration. Even you can't think that quickly, unless you've been trying to explain it to yourself already, in which case you're quite aware of how ridiculous a thing it is to be wearing. It's certainly.. very you. Yes. It definitely suits you. Please don't wear it outside."

The illogicity of this last statement forced Sherlock to dismiss the entire speech, compliment and all, and with a dramatic sigh he retired backwards onto the sofa in front of the window, tugged up his sleeves, and gestured to John for his nicotine patches. After a pause, John obliged, and shoved Sherlock's feet out of the way to sit down with him. Adhesive was peeled back, and applied, and with a large exhale of collective breath the pair watched a petite girl push a pram down the street, two children toddling erratically behind her. Were he with anyone else, John would have speculated as to the relationship of infant to adult, but Sherlock rather removed the fun from such games. Instead, he tucked his good leg under his chin, and turned to look at Sherlock in profile. It did suit him, really, he decided. It was eccentric enough to match the man wearing it, and where a baseball cap would've seemed utterly ridiculous, the soft brown tweed of the Deerstalker simply accentuated the gloss of his hair, moulding itself to his scalp in a way that served to outline the delicate bones hidden underneath.

Another problem with this particular universe is that it is one in which John has started to notice things like that. Delicate bones, glossy hair. His immediate response is to put it down to the boost in observatory powers that Sherlock provides – it's like losing a sense and finding the other 4 improved – but he's aware that this isn't strictly true. He isn't ashamed to say he is attracted to the intelligence of the man. This is perfectly understandable, he reasons, particularly when said intellect is available at such close quarters, and is displayed with such alarming regularity. The problem is that his admiration is growing less and less platonic every day, and as Sherlock grows more comfortable with him – enough to walk around the flat in nothing but loosely clingy pyjama bottoms, or to fall asleep beside him as they watch television, seemingly confident that he's safe under John's watch – the niggling feeling at the back of his mind grows too.

His gaze lingers on the point at which Sherlock's nose meets his upper lip, and he swallows loudly. If Sherlock notices – and of course he has, he's Sherlock – he doesn't let on, mercifully. He rests his head on the back of the sofa and swivels to met John's eyes, chest arching like a cat's as he twists his torso around to meet his neck. The buttons down his front ripple provocatively as he does this. John swallows again.

"I can take it off, if you want me to," Sherlock concedes, quietly. He seems hurt, and once John has realised that he is referring to the hat rather than the shirt, he is quick to reassure him of its merit.

"Keep it on. It's good, really."

"Because it suits me, or because it covers more of me up?"

John straightened in his seat and shifted his gaze to the farthest corner of the room.

"Because it suits you. Why would I want you covered up? You know I like to be able to see what you're doing, it's best for the our security deposits that I can tell when to intervene."

"You watch me, though. I've seen you doing it. I don't mind," he added, as John started to rise from the leather, "you've at least got the subtlety Molly was always grasping for."

"Sherlock," John started, trying to shut him off before he worked out the rest, "I-"

"And really I find it quite reassuring of your character that my appearance is adequately pleasing to garner your attention. I was beginning to worry, from what I've seen of your taste in women you were appearing quite the underachiever."

"Please, Sherlock, drop it. Look, I bought milk, do you want tea?"

"Four sugars, please. So what is it you like, then? It can't be my skintone, your female partners are generally darker than me, though I suppose that that is not a hard quality to achieve. Conventional wisdom suggests that finding dark hair sexually alluring is a possibility, I see that, and I've been told in the past that my bone structure is quite pleasing..." Sherlock stood and resumed his position on the coffee table, proceeding to pull curiously at the various angles of his face, until John re-entered with his tea and told him to stop it.

"You have to be aware that you're a good-looking man, Sherlock," John sighed, after taking a deep sip from his mug and settling it and himself into the armchair. "You act all innocent when people flirt with you but I know you understand what they're doing. The fact that I'm open-minded enough to recognise isn't particularly interesting. Please get down from there and stop flattering yourself."

With one last glance toward the glass, he stepped back down to floor level and with both hands removed the hat from is head, setting it down on John's knee. John stared at the piece of cloth, warm and still shaped to fit Sherlock. Heat spread from it to his thigh, and upwards to join the rest that had rushed to his groin when his flatmate had first started describing his features so matter-of-factly. He closed his eyes tightly and tried to talk himself down.

Sherlock chose that moment – probably on purpose, knowing him – to rest a hand on each of John's shoulders, and let them took his weight as he leant to whisper in a faintly blushing ear.

"Keep the hat. I can see it bothers you. Wouldn't want to obscure your view."

With that, he took the tea from the arm of the chair, and headed for his bedroom. John timed his groan to match the slamming of his door.

This needed to be sorted, and soon.


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock didn't stay in his room for long. He never did; too little to do in there, compared with the diversions offered by the mess of the living room. It was comfortable, where his room lacked a certain personality - John's personality, Sherlock thought idly, as he sifted through the stack of newspaper clippings he'd been curating over the past year or so. His flatmate had left the armchair a few minutes after Sherlock himself had retreated, probably waiting only until the flush in his cheeks had died down a little before moving. He hadn't anticipated the effect he had been having on John recently – it was behaviour he'd grown to expect from a certain kind of woman that he particularly disliked, and of course a certain kind of man, too, though John didn't fit this description as he currently understood it. Sherlock was used to being the centre of attention, this was true, and whilst not particularly vain (Deerstalker aside – he picked it up from where John had tossed it and placed it firmly on his head, and shivered pleasantly at the warmth it offered) he was serviceably aware of his own moderate-if-unconventional good looks. He dressed himself well because his work required it; there's simply no place for a poorly-attired genius in this town, and Sherlock for one was not going to give up his position of begrudged respect simply for refusing to buy a well-cut suit.

He stayed in the living room for the remainder of the evening, and well into the night found diversion in the form of alphabetising his books, a few lesser experiments, some light reading here and there. He put his mind to the study of the stars, as gaps in his knowledge displeased him so, and with not inconsiderate effort spent the small hours mapping out the constellations on the ceiling with a silver pen found in Mrs Hudson's christmas box. Said effort, it turns out, was the final push he needed, and as dawn broke Sherlock finally fell over the precipice of sleep. It was like this that John found him, sprawled under inky heavens, metallic smears highlighting the promontories of his cheekbones. With little thought as to how appropriate an action it was – he had woke from fitful sleep and ventured into their living quarters only for tea and paracetamol – John first sat, and then laid himself down too, crown-to-crown and parallel with Sherlock, his last act before falling back to sleep being to reach over his head and remove the Deerstalker once and for all, throwing it far into the corner of the room, to disappear behind the sofa and mingle with the dust.

They wake slowly, but simultaneously. Sherlock first, as in every pursuit; arching his back from the floor and blinking furiously at the beam of mote-flecked light that had turned his eyelids to tissue. The motion of his spine and the shiver it sent through the floorboards stirred John sufficiently for him to roll onto his side, a position that gave him a clean line of sight to the underside of the most distant sofa, and the hat that lay under it. Only now did Sherlock acknowledge that he was not alone on the floor – he'd deny this, later, observational genius and all – and noting his gaze from the position of his head shifted slightly to the right, so as to see what had made John gulp and stiffen.

"Interesting." Sherlock turned his eyes back to the stars.

- - - - - - - - - - - - – -

In the weeks that followed, the doctor found himself more time for work, spent the evenings with his less enigmatic colleagues, and generally put quite a lot of effort into making himself scarce. The chance to further his practise was fulfilling, his new friends perfectly congenial, but all the while he was conscious that there was somewhere else he should be, another person he ought to be beside. It's not that he misses the detective work; Mycroft still drops the odd case into his lap when Sherlock is being particularly petulant, and he will still assist his flatmate when the questions he is asked are actually pertinent to his expertise, but rather, as the dull ache in his chest will attest to, he misses the detective. Sherlock, to his credit, took the hint fairly early on. The texts thinned out to a solitary message a day, enquiring as to the time when he would be returning home; he'd cut his caseload dramatically since the starry night, instead taking to experiment and chat shows with alarming fervour, and thanks to quite repetitive viewings of culinary programmes had begun to learn to cook, much to John's surprise and suspicion. He saw it for what it was: a deliberate step backwards, to create a life reprehensibly perfect. The only constant, the thing that linked before to after, was the Deerstalker – Sherlock had taken to wearing it religiously in John's presence, and the thought of what it represented was enough to deepen the regret he already felt so surely.

It took Mycroft to break the silence, in the end.

"You do understand, don't you," the older man said, off-hand, when his hand caught the doors of the lift John used to exit his surgery, "quite the change you've brought about in him?"

He didn't need to point out the subject of his question.

"I didn't do anything," John muttered, stabbing the button for the ground floor with bitten nails.

"I understand he informed you that he was aware of your attraction to him."

"...Yes. I've no idea why he's acting so oddly now, though. You know, for him. He _cooks_, Mycroft. It's strange."

"Don't you see?" Mycroft pulled firmly on John's shoulders, so as to get a clear view of his face. "He's trying to win you back."

"But I never left! I upped my hours and made some friends in the process. The fact that it means I spend less time with him is unfortunate, but perhaps a good thing, in the long run. It was unhealthy, the time we spent together. I didn't want to..." John paused, making to leave the lift as it pulled into his floor, but Mycroft stuck his hand out and hit the door closure button.

"You didn't want to what, John?"

"As thrilling and beguiling and bloody exciting as he is to be around, I didn't want to fall for him," John glared at Mycroft for drawing this out from him, and pushed him away from the control panel to open the door manually, "because we both know how badly that would end."

Sherlock was miserable when alone. The thought came upon him suddenly, and the flash of deep, raw feeling that accompanied it was enough to force him into an armchair. He hadn't thought himself capable of misery. It was far too loaded an emotion to apply to him, too redolent of cheap melodrama and, well, Stephen King. Which is not to say he isn't _capable_ of melodrama, he conceded – it's just that his particular brand is far from tawdry, and often completely constructed to ease a spell of boredom. He was willing to admit to missing John, in the sense that all superheroes need a sidekick, and would even go so far as to agree that his absence was partly his fault. He had over-reacted, he decided, with the cooking and cleaning and general domestic about-face. John was clearly not so bothered by his looks as to warrant all that. It was this side of relationships that were largely a mystery to him – he could deal perfectly well with the doing of interesting things, had no shortage of anecdotes to draw on, understood the mechanics of sexual relations well enough to assure himself that when the time comes he would be adequately competent. But making himself _care_, finding it in himself to not bore of a person – it was a task he'd never fully completed. John was growing tiresome in his distance, any closeness they had once shared was being torn asunder by his refusal to return to their previous intimacy. He had even gone so far as to complain to Mycroft about it, asking him to source a new flatmate if John was going to continue to pull away from him. He recognised the signs well enough to know that if something didn't change between them soon, then nothing ever would.

And so it was that John returned home, still flustered from his encounter with the other Holmes brother, to a house resolutely not tidied, and a kitchen returned to the filth he had grown distantly accustomed to. It was meticulous, the dirt – no area remained un-sullied by paper or ink, fluids of indeterminate origin returned a welcome tack to the linoleum. There were, he noted with unfaltering enthusiasm, body parts in the bread bin.

His first thought was to check for a ransom note. Bloodstains, perhaps. A foreign weapon embedded in the sofa. But no, things were in order, of sorts – Sherlock's brogues were strewn around the front door, as was once usual, his coat hanging on the back of a chair. His deerstalker perched on the skull. Oh. _Oh_.

"You missed me," he said quietly to the room, observation rather than accusation.

"I gather it was mutual."

John spun round, a smile blossoming on his face before he made it through the full 180 degrees.

"Well. I can't say I didn't enjoy the peace and quiet," he admitted. "Though your cooking is truly awful."

Sherlock grinned, and moved to pull on shoes and coat.

"Thank God, I was beginning to lose all hope of ever enjoying that interminable activity. Takeaway? I fancy chinese. I'll pay."

"You're bloody right you'll pay."

Sherlock had nearly made it out of the door before John's next question occurred to him.

"No hat, Sherlock?"

"Not today, John."


	3. Chapter 3

John sits on the front step, lit by street lamps. Everything is orange. A cigarette dangles from his hand, and its ash litters his coat. Over the road, a piece of discarded foil is caught in a gate, and as the wind lifts it it flutters at him in morse. A F D W K S A. He isn't sure what it meant, but it seems important, and as he has no idea what it is he's supposed to notice anymore he writes it down in the dust of the street, just in case. Where the light hits the phone cables they shimmer like cobwebs, and John finds himself imagining that the pole they meet at is a bird-eating spider, and that this is why there were no pigeons around today.

The cigarettes and codes were Sherlock's fault. Neither of them had occurred to John before he'd turned up and deduced that he needed a sidekick, that John needed him, and he's still unsure as to which of these facts worries him more - and they are certainly facts, he knows, because Sherlock only ever speaks in them, slave to veracity that he is. John sees more now, he's sure of it, but he understands less than ever. It is Sherlock, the stubborn bastard, and his predilection for the improbable, that means that ordinary John and his ordinary problems are forever the ones sitting on the threshold, staring into the distance, taking dictation from litter. Damn him. John has less brain space to waste. No wonder he forgets the milk so often.

This is Sherlock's fourth ambulance this week. He wonders idly if they offer discount cards. They could use his friend's ever-bloodied fingerprints as stamps, collect all ten for a transfusion, ha bloody ha. Quite literally. John bides his time before he approaches, gives Sherlock space once the paramedics have abated. This blanket is silver, an unwelcome change speaking of actual physical injury - he must be cold, there are abrasions to his slim frame, his eyes glassy and still. That last bit on its own is intolerable, to John. There is a limit to his sympathy, however, as he is certain that this is Sherlock's fault, at the root. That may seem presumptuous but for all his wild darting around, all his diversion and diverting, at heart he is remarkably predictable in his erraticness. Is that a word? Sherlock'd know. John reaches for his phone to text the question, but thinks better of it. Yes, Sherlock's fault - his chills, his scrapes, his hair matted to his scalp by worried, bored fingers. He'll have said something, the calculated wrong thing, aimed just so. Provocation is never an issue in these cases. Lestrade probably has some kind of stamp for that box on the inevitable forms. Keen on efficiency, that man. Doubt he ever sees any, with a consulting detective on his books.

John can't hold out any longer, and stands, ash fluttering everywhere. it catches the breeze follows its eddies, and brings the smell back up to his face with a cough. He flicks the offending butt down a gutter, feeling a little ashamed, and braces himself for the welcome admonishment. It doesn't come. Sherlock is as silent with him as he was with the medical staff, with Lestrade, with his brother, even, who can usually draw at least he most minor insults out of him. He is mute for the next three weeks, and it is deafening.

The living room is a mess, because Sherlock hasn't been in it. Until now John had not appreciated that rather just than being the maelstrom of stuff that he had previously considered him - and he is that, let us not be hasty - Sherlock is actually something of an organisational force in his life. When Sherlock is around, things of high importance are put away, in an attempt to maintain at least a facade of privacy. Papers of joint interest are stacked up so as to enforce the most rudimentary of filing systems. Remotes, phones, bills, newspapers - normally, these are the hardest things to pin down in their flat, so transient they are in nature, but the accumulation of close to a month's worth is starting to show, and it isn't long before the detritus in their space is enough to put John right at the fraying end of his tether.

And so it is to a drift of paper that Sherlock finally emerges from his room behind the kitchen. The little stoop between areas is stacked with plates and bowls, relics of John's attempts to get some food into his flatmate, but like, say, speech, they have gone undisturbed. At first John doesn't notice, his brain skipping over the last few weeks to a position of normality, to Sherlock's unending presence in his life, _retroussé__ nose poking its way into the most mundane of minutiae as if as fascinating as Fermat or Hawking or Gray. He nods at Holmes, then casts his eyes back down to the book he's reading, takes a bite from his apple, tries to read to the end of the page. It's another ten seconds before his heart caches up with his brain, and promptly stops._

That evening, once Sherlock has been told off thoroughly, and John reminded that this is what he does, that he was told that this is what might happen when they first met – John much prefers the violin to the not speaking, he decides – they find themselves on the sofa, newly visible, and the silence that surrounds them is enough to make John uneasy.

"No." Say Sherlock, voice still a little raw. He fingers an antimacassar and smooths the leather of the armrest flat.

"What?" John asks, glad of the chance to converse – muteness is catching, he had talked to few people recently.

"Just because I am currently not speaking does not mean that I am not planning on doing so in the near future. Look, I'm doing it now," Sherlock gestures to his own mouth with a look of studied surprise, "oh, how careless. Wouldn't want to wear that out."

"Of course not. Where would we be without you to keep us informed? I might wear a jumper without the explicit knowledge that doing so gives away the fact that I once visited Hull. What would the neighbours think?" John smiles, thinking of the 'married ones', a little enviously.

He takes a too-deep breath and turns to face Sherlock, resting a hand on his shoulder to turn him around slightly.

"You scared me, Sherlock. I know," he starts, as Sherlock opens his mouth to remind him again of that first meeting, "that you warned me. It doesn't make it easier."

Sherlock studies his flatmate's face, and frowns a little.

"Not good?" he asks, humour creeping into the edges of his voice.

John smirks, and resigns himself to not-quite-understanding, yet again.

"Little bit not good, no."

As was to be expected, Sherlock's next injury doesn't take too long to follow. They weren't far from home, for which John is thankful as he drags on a coat and slams the door behind him. He finds his flatmate on hia knees and panting in Regent's Park, and throws himself down to cut at the bindings around his wrists.

"Ah, John," Sherlock wheeze out, tugging his sleeves down to staunch the little bleeding hed suffered, "took you long enough."

"Shut up." John stands and straighten his back out, lower vertebrae clicking into place painfully.

Something about their positioning clicks into place too, Sherlock on his knees and John with his rictus grimace, and John shakes the thought from his head before he has a chance to consider it.

"I don't mean to sound ungrateful," Sherlock says, stretching his hand out and motioning to be pulled to his feet.

"No Holmes should be without, right?" John's shot at bitterness falls wide, and it is with the downtrodden hopefulness of a once-favoured pet that he comes to stand with Sherlock's hands in his and his eyes on the long, pale collarbone in front of him.

"Ambulance?" John's mouth forms around the word of its own volition, eyes still on that neck, hoping it looks and feels like he's merely following the blood around its body, matching the pulse in Sherlock's wrist with that of his carotid.

"No. You'll do nicely."

It is a good few hours before this particular revelation bubbles to the top of John's mind.

"I'm your ambulance?" he asks quietly, passing Sherlock in the corridor as they go about cleaning themselves and the flat up. Sherlock is taking the stairs two at a time when he's asked, and John assumes he didn't hear, but no, it appears he was just thinking, because when he reaches the top, he turns and leans on the balustrade.

"If I can be your accidents," Sherlock says from the top of the landing. John doubts he meant the statement in the way he's taken it, so he pushes for more.

"You want to be my what?" He asks, cringing at the hopeful tone in his voice, and preparing for the rebuke that should by all rights accompany a request for Sherlock to repeat himself.

"Accidents. I will be your accidents if you will be my ambulance."

John is climbing the stairs now, and Sherlock's eyes never leave him.

"I can't work out if that should sound selfish or touching. It might be both," John says, looking anywhere but Sherlock's face.

"You need stress. Your hand, remember? And I need someone to deal with the aftermath of it. And given that your stress is my aftermath, I think this could work out.. very nicely indeed." Sherlock is prowling now, and John is moving backwards towards the steps he's just climbed, wincing slightly at the use of his own words.

"Not much of a life, is it? Running after a madman and setting his nose once in a while?" John turns and sits at the top of the carpet runner, feet a few levels lower. He flattens himself against the wall when his flatmate sits down beside him.

"I'd take it." Sherlock offers, hands upturned on his knees. He flexes his palms thoughtfully.

"No, you wouldn't." John takes the one nearest to him and pushes up its cuff, examining the bruising he finds there. The flesh is hot, but so is his, now, with the proximity and the questioning, and he can't tell Sherlock off for overactivity without knowing for sure that it isn't John himself who's overheating.

"No, I wouldn't," Sherlock agrees, "but if I were you, I'd want me."

John laughs nervously, and feels the artery under his fingers jump.

"Did you deduce that, or are you putting yourself in my – quite boring, I'm sure – shoes?" He swallows heavily and hopes desperately for the latter. Cards on the table, then.

It seems, however, that John has done the not-impossible-enough and shut the taller man up. He pulls his hand back and clasps them, pushing them between his knees and looking off to the left, forehead against the bannisters.

"Neither," he murmurs, voice rumbling through the glossed wood and reverberating through John's hips.

"Oh?" He asks, hand placed on Sherlock's shoulder, before it is thrown off by him standing up abruptly and moving down a few stairs, until he's at the right height to lean forward and rest his arms on the lip of the landing, head level with John's. Bow-shaped lips are mere inches from John's when Sherlock moistens his, preparing himself for an admission. He doesn't make them often.

"I had merely assumed that you feel the same way about me as I do about you. I don't trust easily, John, you know that. And nor do I like to appear vulnerable. So imagine, if you can, quite how hard it must be for me to let you look after me." Sherlock's face moves closer, and down, until his last line is spoken in a whisper just above John's ear, mouth brushing the widest part of his sideburns. His breath is warm and damp, and John shivers before he can stop himself.

"And, I," John stumbles for the words as Sherlock weaves above him.

"Spit it out." Aggression and impatience force the words through his lips with a speed that makes the phrase almost onomatopoeic.

"And as hard as it is for you to trust me, it must be that hard for me to trust you," John mumbles the words in one breath, knuckles white in his lap.

"Don't make me spell it out for you." Sherlock has moved to look straight into John's eyes. "Because you know I can."

"I'm a doctor who likes war. Needs it, even," he adds, with a glance to his weaker wrist.

"Yes, yes, obvious. Hurry up, John."

John rolls his eyes, confidence returning to him with this flash of normality.

"And if it's danger and a chance to practical my clinical skills that I want, who better than Sherlock Holmes," he grins triumphantly, disaster averted, emotional outburst still very much in check.

Sherlock looks faintly disappointed. John'd even go so far as to say he's pouting. Which is not hard to judge, at this range. A hollow space opens up in John's stomach, and it occurs to him that perhaps this was the wrong angle to take. Sherlock does not ordinarily do intimacy, and with a crash like a slammed door, he watches his face close up, mere inches away.

"Yes, well. Of course," Sherlock manages, finally straightening up and descending into the hall, John taking the opportunity to stretch his limbs and make his way slowly downstairs. "So. John?"

"Mm?" He stops in the doorway, blocked by Sherlock, who has draped himself over the frame like a particularly sinuous curtain.

"Ambulance?" He offers his hand to John, eyes unreadable to all but his blogger, who could swear he saw hope in them.

John looks at the outstretched fingers, then up to Sherlock's face, and makes a decision that, probably, should've been thought through better. He takes a step closer, reaching up to mimic their earlier pose, nose to nose, and with a decisive nod of the head he bridges the gap between them and pushes their lips together.

That Sherlock swooned at this point would later be flatly denied to him, but given that no one but the skull was watching, John decided not to push his luck.


End file.
